Tuesday, 17 May 2011

I am pleased with my work and happy I did the course at Stockport College. It has been a journey and there have been ups and downs with developing my style over the three years. I think I have found my style, which is making things out of materials and photographing it and working to a large scale.However, I do like trying out different methods and I do need to make more progress on my work and after university I don’t want to stop or take a break, I will try and stay motivated as like Mr Motivator.

My next aim after university is to do masses of work experience, with companies who create music videos, set design, prop making, window displays, creating festivals and have fun and enjoy what I do.

I also have fears about what to do after university; having no tutor to look at my work and give me guidance, I will find it hard at first but through my Personal Development Programme I have realised that this will be my guidance with contacts and artists in the industry, to help with my work and vice versa.

London was a confidence booster, on our first portfolio visit I was nervous but, after a few visits I got a bit more confident with displaying my work. When at university you are in a bubble and it is great to hear comments on your work from other people in the industry looking at your work and giving you advice.

The opportunities so far are, I have been offered a few work experiences in London and, to keep up with my work/portfolio, I will try and get a job in a creative environment to have the money coming in, such as a visual merchandiser or a creative assistant in retail head office, to further my career and to keep my motivation going.

My three major projects which I have done this year are Touring Cubes proposal for D&AD Awards, Book Illustration and Fish Tank proposal for Music.The Touring Cubes and Fish Tank proposals were a different way of working, more on architecture and locations and also were song based. I really enjoyed working on these projects; I worked in my style by creating the handmade props and tweaking them in Photoshop. I understand Photoshop now but I still need to discover how to use more of its tools. I know when the image looks right, because of what I am trying to communicate and then I take a photograph of it.

With the Touring Cubes, they were based on two tracks from an artist. I based it on the images of the meaning of two songs and was influenced by a science artist called Will Burtin His work are scientific models, some contain in glass boxes, with flashing interactive installations. A visual artist, Annette Messanger, with an installation of an inflate/deflate human body, also influenced me. This project was scientific; I would like to work like this again.

The Fish Tank I art directed the same way as with the Touring Cubes. The image was photographed and I created the pieces myself. In the future I would like to be an art director. I had to work on the designed to be displayed on three panels for a meeting room. I based the imagery on a track called ‘fish’ by Mr Scruff, an artist, and, because the song is quirky and humorous, it fits my style of working. I interpreted the song and focused on the two vocal samples. I did find it hard at first to communicate the mock up. I thought of sticking the element to the glass but that was a bad idea and also I thought of fishing wire. I got this idea when I went to Common, a bar in the Northern Quarter of Manchester to see window installations by two artists, called Lord Whitney Installation.

I am pleased with the outcome and, as this is for a live proposal, hopefully the agency will say yes, so I can install it. If I did it again I would change my time keeping; we had a two week break and I should have had the confidence to make my own decisions; however, I waited to speak to my tutor and he had the idea of actually making the elements and taking a photograph and I already had that in mind over the Easter holidays, therefore could have worked on the project sooner.

I based the book illustration on “Soulmates” by Marian Keyes.I used a different working style with this book illustration. I enjoyed printing the colours and will use this technique in the future but I am not a standard illustrator, thinking within four lines and I don’t think this image complements my other images. I tried to think of the word ‘Soulmates’ and I did lots of research and I came up with the science behind it, as a chemical reaction.

I’m looking forward to my experiences and personal development next year; this is a new beginning to further develop myself as an artist.

I am going to fab lab tomorrow to laser cut out a mustache ring, out of black perspex and the type will be etched on. This is the second time I've used Abode Illustrator, I will bring everything on my hard drive, just in case.

Tuesday, 3 May 2011

When we went to London for portfolio visit, I was happy that I went, I made one appointment for myself called Fred & Eric.

Fred & Eric are multidisciplinary creative agency, they combine illustration & animation. They were lovely ladies, give me advise about my work, they said to keep them up dated with how my work is going & this summer I might be helping out with a music video with them.

Second portfolio visit was with Faber & Faber, this book agency was not what I want to get into for my career but it was very helpful. It was interesting of how a front book cover is created.

Third portfolio visit was Big Orange, it is a studio shared with AOI. They went through our portfolio & one of the illustrators said about my work (which made me think)on the ‘A Night in The Woods image’ “is this the finished image, or is this a record of what your night would be & is the photograph the final image?” for my portfolio I will change the title to a record of of the night. We met an artist called Paul Davis, he was a humorous, quirky character & made us laugh. he showed some of his work & told us to enter magazines.

That evening we went to a pub in Kingways for an event with Shell Suit Zombie, they are a project run by graduate, that encourage students & the creative industry.

The next day we met up with Gillian Blease, she was very helpful; she said while looking through my work I should get into art direction, installations, and festival based/live events.

On the Thursday in the morning I want to Leeds to see Lord Whitney they are a collaboration between Amy Lord and Rebekah Whitney. They combine photography, prop making, set design with creating life size illustration & installation. They produce window display, festival tents & interiors. Their studio was amazing, they were both helpful & what else I should have my portfolio. They are art directing Just So Festival in the summer in Leek & they want 3 interns to help out with the festival, they want a summery of what I hope to gain from this experience for the 20th May, I am going to enter it.

I went into common last week , not for a drink but to have a look at the inside of this installation window display created by Lord Whitney, wanted to have a look at what materials used and this has helped very much for my proposal- ooo I love cardboard.

Thursday, 14 April 2011

This is what the image would look like on each side of the glass. I'm going to print these out, cut them up and make a illusion of depth on a piece perspex, then take a photograph of both side and add 3D elements on the perspex and a underwater machine gun.

I've not finished this image yet, I am creating a proposal for illustration on a glass for a meeting room, with a illusion of depth. This is going to be a large scale and made from cardboard. Next image on the go is a frogman in a driving suit wit knife & fork hands.

Thursday, 7 April 2011

I'm liking 'Ah studios' work, they created a window display for a design agency called Odd, this helps me with looking at scale and how big I want my peices on the glass. The cut out cardboard looks playful and I want to get my scissors out and cut away.

I am to create a proposal to interpretation a music track of my choice, a series of illustrations to connect to glass panels for an installation. I have chosen Mr Scruff 'Fish' I have found reference for my ideas and will work with coloured card/cardboard and polystyrene balls for bubbles.

Saturday, 19 March 2011

For my artefact I am going to create sme designs for a T-shirt , I really like these designs from Rockwell By Parra.I am going to have my deigns on the front and my name, website on the back. I might wear them on our end of year exhibition night- woo I'm excited.

Friday, 18 March 2011

For the story 'soulmates' I have created mono prints to represent the chemical reaction with people, I'm going going to created with my mono prints on a object. In the story they meet at a launch party for Japanese beer, got ideas with that and going to use the vinyl cutter (never used it before)

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Science chemical connectionA band called 'Lucky Dragons.'Science Connections. I am going to create two illustrations for a short comedy story called 'Soulmates' from one of my favorite author Marian Keys. The story is about couple who were born the same day, same year, the same hair and they were in love. They had a baby called Quenni, split up and became friends but they are still soulmate and going on holiday with their partners. Image shown above has given me ideas for that invisible connections that soulmates have and no ones see. Jigsaw. Another idea is about connection of two jigsaws but not making it love, making it as friends who have a spirit connections. I have vision of a life size jigsaw's and people wearing them connect together.